It is a brisk April evening in downtown Minneapolis. A haphazard crowd of about 20 people gathers. Some carry American flags. A homily from the mid-20th century Catholic archbishop Fulton Sheen—famous for bringing the Word of the Lord to TV and radio—plays through loudspeakers. The plan is a protest, to march and to stop traffic. And so the group begins walking behind a flatbed truck that crawls down 1st Street, running parallel to the Mississippi River. Now, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” play through the speakers. A woman, with “Arrest Fauci” written in black marker on duct tape attached to her hat, smokes a cigarette as she walks.
This is a campaign rally for Royce White, a Republican who was encouraged to run for Congress by Steve Bannon; an activist who led Black Lives Matter protests; and a famous one-time NBA first-round draft pick. Affable and charismatic, White—6 foot 8, bald and bearded—walks among his few supporters and rubs his hands together incessantly. It is April, and winter is lagging in Minnesota, and so maybe White is trying to warm up. Or perhaps he is nervous about the paltry turnout for a campaign he has called a revolution.
